As I said, Fuck You, Bud Light. Also, Fuck You, DDB Worldwide Communications. As the advertising agency responsible for this, I want you all to be ashamed of yourselves. Here is what you did:

You picked up a bottle of Bud Light.
You drank a little.
You made a face.
You sighed.
And you realized there was nothing worthwhile about this product that you could sell.

So what did you do? You decided to focus on the distinction of Bud Light’s “Drinkability” . There’s only one real problem there. All beers are equally drinkable. Really, drinkability applies to any fluid of reasonably low viscosity. You don’t even make claims as to the potability of Bud Light. I mean Jesus, BLEACH has roughly the same level of drinkability.

It’s just astounding. You take a drink, and you advertise that it is distinct from other drinks, and more desirable because of the ease with which you can drink it. Of course drinkabilty is literally the ONLY constant among all beverages. Bud Light: It’s not a solid!

Thank You Ellie Halevy and Also the People Who Work for You and Also The Ad Agency You Worked With

As a contrast, I would like to bring up the ad campaign for Tropicana’s Valencia Orange Juice. Tropicana is owned by Pepsico, who are having a whole assload of their own problems, marketing wise. (Really, a dumber version of your old circle trademark? That’s your plan to dominate the world of cola?) The Valencia Orange Juice though, those ads were great. They consisted of a sultry voiced lady explaining to you why this was going to be good orange juice, going into detail as to why you should pay more money for what was reasonably described as a superior product. This voice over accompanied slow motion photography of orange juice being poured, using lighting and music that bordered on erotic.

Essentially, the advertisement gave the viewer this message:
Isn’t orange juice good?
Don’t you want some?
It’s good.
Well this stuff is EXTRA good.
These are like, the best oranges we have.
And they’re all in this juice.
You should get some.

And assuming you agree with the initial proposition that orange juice is indeed good, you have no reason not to believe this might be really good orange juice, and you should probably get some.

Part Three

Now compare these ad campaigns. Bud Light is hoping that you are simple minded enough that when they say “The Difference is Drinkability” you will become confused, forget that this is a quality inherent to all beers and begin purchasing Bud Light. Contrast this to the Tropicana Valencia campaign which seems to hope that you believe better oranges will make better orange juice, and that maybe you have a little bit of an orange juice fetish*.

With this in mind, I would submit that a more accurate version of the “The Difference is Drinkability” campaign would be as follows.